Home Office

Overseas Domestic Workers

Lord Bates: My rt hon Friend the Minister of State for Immigration (James Brokenshire) has today made the following Written Ministerial Statement:I am today setting out the Government’s response to the key recommendations of the independent review of the overseas domestic worker (ODW) visa, which was undertaken by James Ewins QC and published on 17 December 2015.   The Government acknowledges the vulnerability of ODWs to abuse and exploitation, and has already taken a number of steps both to reform entry requirements to guard against it, and put measures in place to protect the position of ODWs who experience such abuse once they are here. Mr Ewins’ review was commissioned in order to improve our understanding of whether existing arrangements are effective and what more can be done to ensure that abuse can be identified; support provided to victims; and perpetrators dealt with. Such evidence remains elusive due to the difficulty of obtaining reliable data.  The first of the review’s key recommendations is that the Government should relax the “employer tie”, allowing ODWs to change employers and be granted an additional two years’ stay for that purpose. The Government’s primary aim is to ensure that where abuse and exploitation takes place, it is brought to light so that victims can be supported and action taken against perpetrators. The National Referral Mechanism (NRM) has been put in place for this purpose and, as with any other victims of slavery our aim must be to be create an environment in which ODWs who are victims of abuse are encouraged to report the abuse and to access support.   The Government’s concern is that if ODWs were able to change employers and significantly prolong their stay, irrespective of whether they have reported this abuse and whether there is evidence that such abuse has taken place, they may be less likely to report abuse. This may perpetuate a revolving door of abuse in which perpetrators remain unidentified and free to bring other domestic workers to the United Kingdom with impunity.   The Government does, however, acknowledge the case which has been put forward for providing ODWs with an immediate escape route from abuse. On the basis of advice from the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner we have therefore come to the view that there should be two distinct elements to our approach to the employer tie. First, we will provide those admitted as ODWs with the ability to take alternative employment as a domestic worker with a different employer during the six month period for which they are originally admitted. This ability to take alternative employment will not depend on whether or not they have been found to be the victim of abuse.   Second, we will go further and amend the provisions of the Immigration Rules introduced in October of last year to increase the period for which an extension of stay will be granted to an ODW who has been the subject of a positive conclusive grounds decision under the National Referral Mechanism from six months to two years. This is in addition to the existing provisions under which discretionary leave may be granted to those, for example, assisting the police with their enquiries or pursuing a compensation claim.  These measures will build on the steps that the Government has already taken, under section 53 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, to ensure that ODWs who are potential victims of abuse are protected from immigration enforcement action. In the absence of reliable quantitative evidence on the prevalence of abuse, we think these measures will strike the right balance between offering ODWs every opportunity to escape abuse while ensuring that those who report such abuse have greater certainty as to their status. The Government will implement these measures through changes to the Immigration Rules at the earliest opportunity and we will keep them under review as further data on the issue emerges over time.  In addition, the Government is in full agreement with the review’s second key recommendation that more should be done to ensure that both ODWs and their employers are provided with information on their respective rights and obligations, and to provide ODWs with access to a neutral space in which they can be given advice and an opportunity to alert someone to their situation if they need to. We believe that empowering victims of hidden crimes like modern slavery is fundamental to bringing them into the light and ending the cycle of exploitation. The Government will therefore implement the review’s proposals for the introduction of information, advice and support meetings for ODWs who are in the UK, hosted by an organisation independent of the Home Office. We are considering further whether the requirement to attend the meetings should apply sooner than the 42 days period suggested by the review. As the report has recommended, the cost of providing these meetings will be recovered through an increase in visa fees.  We also accept the broad thrust of the review’s recommendations in respect of entry clearance procedures, and will consider whether we should go further in taking a proactive approach to ensuring that information and messages concerning entitlements and obligations are understood before a visa is issued.   We also want to tighten the obligations of employers of ODWs and ensure that these are rigorously enforced. We therefore intend to go further than the review has proposed to ensure employers’ compliance with their obligations. We will introduce a requirement that any employer wishing to sponsor the entry of an ODW must first register with UK Visas and Immigration for this purpose. Registration will be conditional on the employer agreeing that they will allow their employees to attend the aforementioned information meetings; will comply with employment law; and will co-operate with any workplace-based compliance checks undertaken by UK Visas and Immigration. Any employer who fails to comply with these obligations could then be considered for removal from the register, thus losing the right to sponsor the entry of other ODWs in the future. These measures will send out a clear message to employers of ODWs that the United Kingdom will not tolerate abuse and that we will take action against employers who abuse their workers.  We intend that measures to give ODWs working in private households additional protection should also apply to those employed in diplomatic households. The right to change employers will apply to ODWs who have been admitted to work in a diplomatic setting, as will the requirement to attend information, advice and support meetings. In addition, we already require that the entry of such domestic workers must be sponsored by the relevant mission. UK Visas and Immigration may seek from that mission a waiver of the diplomat’s immunity if it wishes to undertake checks on, for example, the diplomat’s compliance with UK employment law.   We will also ensure, as the review has recommended, that where a mission sponsors a private servant of a diplomat under Tier 5 of the Points Based System, one of its sponsorship obligations should be to ensure that the relevant diplomat receives written information about their obligations as employers and confirms they have read and understood it.   It is not, however, clear that requiring that the relationship of employment be with the mission rather than the diplomat - as the review recommends - would make a material difference to our ability to check compliance, as the mission itself would enjoy State immunity. It is also possible that requiring such staff to be employed by the mission would cause the worker to be treated as service staff for the purposes of the Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964, making them exempt from UK immigration control, which would in turn reduce the checks that could be applied before the worker entered the UK.   Mr Ewins has in his report made other recommendations concerning, for example, access to legal assistance and the operation of National Minimum Wage requirements. The Government is considering these points and will make clear its position in due course.  The Government will continue to keep its policies concerning the admission of ODWs under review. We have, in this connection, noted Mr Ewins’ comments concerning the lack of robust evidence about the movements of such workers and the incidence of abuse. The Government’s expectation is that the implementation of the measures set out in this Statement as well as the data that will become available from exit checks and the operation of the National Referral Mechanism will shed more light on the issue and the effectiveness of the extensive package of measures that are in place to protect victims.


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Department for Transport

The Northern Transport Strategy

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: My Honourable Friend, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones), has made the following Ministerial Statement. Today, jointly with Transport for the North (TfN), we are publishing the first annual update report on development of the Northern Transport Strategy. The report sets out progress across the full range of the transport strategy, covering roads, rail, smart and integrated travel, freight, international and strategic local connectivity including: the emerging options for the Northern Powerhouse Rail network linking the North’s major city regions;an implementation plan for Smart North – the programme to deliver simplified fares, integrated ticketing and improved online passenger information across all the North’s public transport;findings from the ongoing roads strategic studies in the North; the North Trans-Pennine Routes (A66/A69), the Manchester North West Quadrant (M60) studies, and the Trans Pennine Tunnel Study into the options for a new all-weather link between Greater Manchester and Sheffield City Region, including a new tunnel under the Peak District National Park. The report also summarises the initial findings of the Northern Powerhouse Independent Economic Review, commissioned by TfN, and sets out TfN’s aim to become the first statutory Sub-national Transport Body to be established under the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016, so that the North of England can speak to Government with one voice on its transport priorities.Preparation of the report has been led by TfN, working closely with the Department for Transport, Network Rail, Highways England, HS2 Ltd and the National Infrastructure Commission. This report marks the achievements of TfN in its first year, towards investing in transport to transform economic growth in the North, and rebalance the UK economy. The Northern Powerhouse can’t be built over-night, it’s a long-term plan to which this Government is fully committed. The full report can be found on: www.gov.uk 


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Department for Education

Funding for Schools

Lord Nash: My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.The government is today launching the first stage of its consultation on national funding formulae for schools and high needs.As part of our commitment to governing as One Nation and to educational excellence everywhere, we must fund pupils with the same characteristics and the same costs at the same rate, no matter where they live. Funding should be fair for all parts of the country: rural and urban, shire and metropolitan, north and south. The current funding system fails to do this, and is arbitrary and unfair: a school in one part of the country can receive over 50% more than an identical school with exactly the same children, simply because of an accident of geography. We will tackle this unfairness and end the education funding postcode lottery by introducing new national funding formulae from 2017-18, based transparently on the needs of children, pupils and schools.Across all of our proposals we have 3 priorities: 1) allocating funding fairly and straight to the frontline, 2) matching funding to need so that the higher the need, the greater the funding and 3) ensuring the transition to a reformed system is manageable.We should allocate funding fairly and straight to the frontline. Following a transition period, we are proposing a single national formula for schools, removing the role of local authorities in determining school funding so that pupils with similar needs will attract the same level of funding to their school no matter where they live. In a system where increasing numbers of schools operate as academies, independent of their local authority, and more and more are in multi-academy trusts which cross local boundaries, there is limited reason for local authorities to determine the funding of schools. For pupils with high needs, the local authority remains the right level at which to distribute funding, as there are still important local decisions to be made both about the pattern of provision, and about the special provision required for individual children and young people.Funding should be matched to need. The distribution of need across the country has changed in the last 10 years, but the funding system has not kept up. Eligibility for free school meals has declined markedly in some areas, and risen elsewhere. But the distribution of core schools funding has remained constant, unable to adapt. With the introduction of the national funding formula, funding will genuinely match need, ensuring that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds receive significant additional funding to help them overcome entrenched barriers to their success. We are consulting on the objective, evidence-based factors that actively drive cost - we would use these in the schools and high needs systems to match funding to need each and every year. For schools, they cover: basic funding for every pupil, funding for additional needs, funding for school costs and funding for area costs. We want to enable head teachers and local leaders to ensure that all children and pupils are given the opportunity to achieve to the best of their ability at every stage of their education.The transition should be manageable. Proposals to remove the role of the local authority from school funding represent a significant change to the system. We are therefore proposing to phase in this change so that there is a smooth transition period, before bringing it in fully in 2019-20. Authorities will continue to determine the funding for schools in their area in 2017-18 and 2018-19. We will use this transitional phase to look closely at how local formulae have responded to the introduction of the national funding formula. We will also make sure that the pace of change in funding is manageable. For schools, this means continuing the minimum funding guarantee. For high needs, we also propose that a significant element of the formula should, at this time, be based on the current pattern of expenditure, to protect provision for children and young people already settled in schools and colleges. Finally, from 2016-17 we will make available additional funding for schools to invest in ways to save money in future, helping them to manage the transition to a national funding formula. We are also providing information, tools, training and guidance to help schools improve their financial management and efficiency.What we are proposing will be the biggest step forward in making funding fair in over a decade. These are important and significant reforms to get right and so we will consult in two stages. In our first consultation we are outlining our clear vision for the funding system; the principles by which we will set our formulae; and the factors we propose to use. It will be an opportunity to thoroughly debate the principles and the building blocks of the formulae. Once we have done so, we will then be able to set out proposals for the detailed design of the formulae and show how the new formulae will impact on the funding of schools and local authorities, in a second consultation. A consultation on our plans for early years funding will also follow later in the year.This government has already protected the schools budget in real terms and protected the pupil premium to target funding at the most disadvantaged pupils – at levels higher than any government before. Now we are making the system for distributing this funding fair, so that no pupil or school is disadvantaged by where they are.


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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The Turkey Refugee Facility

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My right Honourable Friend, Minister for Europe (David Lidington), has made the following written Ministerial statement:In November 2015, the EU committed to provide €3bn of resources over 2016 and 2017 for Turkey under the EU-Turkey Action Plan. In return Turkey committed to enhance its support for Syrians under temporary protection in Turkey and to strengthen cooperation with the EU on preventing irregular migration flows to Europe.Final arrangements for the €3bn Turkey Refugee Facility have been agreed by all EU Member States. The €3bn Turkey Refugee Facility will be funded by €1bn from the EU budget and €2bn bilateral contributions from Member States. Member States’ bilateral contributions are calculated according to their Gross National Income (GNI) share. The UK’s bilateral contribution will be €327m (around £250m). It will be Official Development Assistance (ODA) expenditure and count towards the UK’s ODA target of 0.7% of GNI.Member States have secured a strong role in the governance of the Facility and disbursals will be tied to Turkish efforts to implement the EU-Turkey Action plan. The €3bn Turkey Refugee Facility will provide immediate humanitarian support and is expected also to fund the schools, hospitals and housing required over the longer term to support refugees and the communities in Turkey which host them.


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